WASHTech Burkina Faso : The final sprint has begun!

A few months remain before the end of the WASHTech project in Burkina Faso. The project team composed of the Burkina Faso Offices of Intergovernmental Panafrican agency Water and Sanitation for Africa (WSA) of Water-Aid and IRC, steps on the accelerator to finalize the remaining activities before the end of the project in December 2013.

Among the key activities at the end of the project, there’s the organization of a national training workshop for actors in the WASH sector that will be driven by the the Department of Studies and Information one Water (DEIE). The objective of this workshop is to present the achievements of the project including tools Technology Assessment Framework (TAF) Technology Introduction Process (TIP) and strengthen their capacity to use these tools. The impacts of the project in Burkina Faso after three years of implementation will be presented. This national workshop is scheduled to take place in November 2013. Before this national workshop, the capacity of the staff of the DEIE will be strengthened with the use of TAF and TIP tools so that they can ensure their host institution roles of these tools at the end of the project. In the process, key documents and products of the project are being translated into French for publication online and made available to partners and stakeholders. Also, stories of changes related to the implementation of the project will be collected to determine the actual impact of the project on stakeholders in Burkina Faso. The stories will be collected from local NGOs, decentralized state institutions in charge of water and sanitation, the relevant departments in the Ministry in charge of water and sanitation, research institutions, etc.

What about the TAF after WASHTech ?

One of the major concerns for the entire project is what will happen to TAF and TIP tools at the end of the project. The team of Burkina Faso is examined for several months. It met in a workshop last June in the premises of Water-Aid/Burkina to identify the structure that will house the tools. After the meeting, the Department of Studies and Information one Water (DEIE) was chosen to be the host institution. This choice was logical. Indeed, DEIE is a specialized management of the Direction Générale des Ressources en Eau (DGRE) of the Ministry of Water of Burkina Faso. It therefore has all the assets needed to manage and apply these tools at the national level for receiving the approval of the country. For this choice, the WashTech team worked to engage the DEIE into project activities by accompanying, with the authorization of the government, the project stakeholders in Uganda to the global meeting of all project stakeholders. Also exchanges are opened for the signing of a framework of long-term partnership between WSA (which represents the other partners) and DEIE for use, promotion and popularization of the TAF tool. The memorandum was developed and is in the process of amendment at the DEIE. According to the program, this agreement should be signed by the end of october to give rise to the series of training that will be driven by all partners WSA, WaterAid and IRC.